Romulus My Father Speech

“Belonging grows from understanding and acceptance”Understanding and acceptance are the building blocks for a good relationship, and Relationships are essential to finding a true sense of belonging. This sense of belonging can grow from the connections made with people, places and the larger world. It is these connections that influence where we search for meaning in our lives and ultimately, where we belong. Without understanding and accepting these connections, can you ever truly belong? The biography “Romulus My Father” and the short story “Up Taree Way” show how belonging is often deeply connected to place and for both Romulus and Millie there is an obvious dislocation from this place. For instance Romulus is a Romanian living in the unfamiliar landscape of Australia whilst Milly from Up Taree Way is an Aboriginal child living in the unfamiliar landscape of Sydney city. In both of these texts, Romulus and Milly eventually understand that no matter how long they live in their new environments they will always belong to their culture and in turn accept the values of where they originally came from. It is obvious that throughout both texts understanding and acceptance has strengthened the characters relationships with their friends, family and the larger world to which they belong. As much as understanding can increase ones sense of belonging, lack of understanding can decrease it. I mean how easy is it to misunderstand someone these days? For example after Niel Symon, an aboriginal story teller, comes to Milly’s school and shares his knowledge and experiences with them they begin to understand his culture and appreciate it. After this, Millie admitted to her school friends that Neil was her uncle, learning that when she stopped trying to belong she realised she, in fact always did belong. This is because her friends were always interested and impressed by her childhood stories and did not act any differently towards her when they found out that it was...

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...sense of Belonging, a process that incites the creation, or deterioration of a sense of personal and cultural identification. The memoir, Romulus, MyFather, by Raimond Gaita; John Guare’s play, Six Degrees of Separation; and Tim Winton’s short story, Big World, from the collection, The Turning, explore the concept that Belonging is the driving force for the human condition. Each composer represents their varied perceptions of belonging in their texts, conveying that Belonging as a fundamental need we strive for in our search to create a concrete identity.
The memoir, Romulus, MyFather, portrays the ways in which immigrants in 1950’s rural Victoria struggled to be accepted in a foreign society, exploring both Romulus and Gaita’s personal experiences with Belonging. The tone of the narrative is retrospective; Gaita makes himself vulnerable to his responder by inviting them to observe Australian society from the perspective of a migrant. Romulus’ experience is typical of a first generation migrant, he is displaced, separated from his homeland, conveyed through the metaphor of his disconnection to the Australian landscape: “He longed for European society, saying that he felt like a ‘prisoner’ in Australia.” Romulus is an example of stoicism displayed through typically male qualities, defined by his work ethic and strong European morals....

...ROMULUSMYFATHER, THE ISLAND
Belonging is about finding a sense of place in the world which can be due to a strong sense of connection with others. For those who don’t belong and cannot find ‘their place’ they are faced with problems of alienation and loneliness from others or feel estranged or in conflict with the environment. These different aspects are reflected in the texts RomulusmyFather, Raimond Gaita and The Island, Armin Greder. These texts portray the concept of belonging and not belonging, whether it is to family, a relationship, place or environment.
RomulusmyFather conveys how an individuals relationships are central to our sense of belonging and help us find natural connection whether it with environment or people. Raimond Gaita uses first person throughout the book to express his experiences as well as his mother and fathers experiences of belonging to surroundings. Romulus is a migrant to Australia who ‘always considered himself Romanian.’ Although Romulus Gaita does not feel at home in Australia he belongs due to the connection he has with those around him. The use of high modality verb choice suggests pleasant nostalgia about events. Most evident in Romulus’s recollections of his father, ‘I loved him too deeply…no quarrel could estrange us,’ which displays the...

...be enriched by feelings of security or challenged by feelings of insecurity, but either way belonging shapes the way we all live our lives. This is represented thoroughly in both ‘RomulusmyFather’ by Raimond Gaita and ‘Avatar’ by James Cameron, both texts show that belonging or not belonging is an unavoidable activity and may take many different forms, some obvious and others hidden.
‘RomulusMyFather’ opens with an immediate sense of insecurity and danger, ‘pitchfork held tightly in both hands, knowing that he would probably kill his uncle…’ (pg. 1) with Romulus knowing that he did not belong in this place he fled for safety, similarly, in ‘Avatar’ the opening scene starts with the space ship nearing the alien planet of Pandora, far from home on Earth, heading into the unknown with no notions of security. Neither text starts with commonly relatable situations for the responder limiting our understanding of the characters feelings of their situations.
Both texts carry a theme of migration and therefore show feelings of not belonging to place or culture, Romulus, Christine and Raimond migrate to Australia from Europe, Jake migrates from Earth to Pandora. In both cases, language forms barriers to belonging and the lack of mutual understanding causes tensions between groups. In ‘RomulusMyFather’, the migration to...

...connections to people provide the social security and support that is essential to human nature. Romulus, MyFather, a biographical memoir written by Raimond Gaita, explores these concepts of how connections to people and place, or lack thereof, can have dramatic and detrimental consequences on our wellbeing. This is particularly explored in the characters Christine and Romulus, who each experience an absence of belonging in their relationships with people and place. As well as this, Romulus, MyFather demonstrates how belonging to place can be affected by our relationships with people. These ideas are similarly explored in the short story, Neighbours by Tim Winton, which explores the difficulties faced by a couple in settling into a neighbourhood of immigrants.
Developing strong relationships with other people can lead us to define our own personalities and actions. However, in Romulus, MyFather, the connections shared between family and friends constantly encounters various troubles and difficulties surrounding them, consequently many of these people experience problems develop in their own well-being. The relationship between Romulus and Christine, resolves itself in a detrimental manner, and consequently Raimond himself is even affected, this is demonstrated in the constant sidelining of his mother’s perspective...

...Gaita’s memoir RomulusMyfather as the individuals Romulus, Raimond and Christine experience the dynamic changes evident in the concept of belong to place, society and community. Armin Greder also explores the fluid and dynamic nature of belonging through his picture book ‘The Island’ through the isolation of the protagonist within the confinements of the island.
The inclusion or exclusion from a community is shaped by human prejudices and tolerances. The biographical examination of Romulus’ life with in the text RMF, illustrates his rejection and acceptance within the community of Baringhup. Romulus’ immigrant status shows the division between the new immigrants and the Australians, as the immigrants are forced into a camp. This camp offered shelter and food, though it also offered an opportunity for belonging through shared experiences and cultures, “He asked the man who greeted new arrivals whether there were any other Romanians… He sought them out and they quickly greeted.” Although unaccepted by the Australians, Romulus is able to find other immigrants who he is able to connect with and form relationships, creating a family society between them. Through Romulus’ adoption of the Australian name “Jack” he attempts to connect to the social milieu of Baringhup though impeded by his unfamiliar morals and values which are not accepted by the Australian...

...understanding of where they belong in a society. A sense of belonging is driven by both the external and internal factors that exist around them. Raimond Gaita’s biographical memoir Romulus, MyFather and Margaret Atwood’s poem “Further Arrivals” clearly demonstrate similar concepts of how a person’s sense of belonging may differ. Both texts construct related understanding of the harsh experience of migration to Australia, the struggle to find their own identity and pursuit to find their home, wherever that may be. Belonging to the people around us as well as our surroundings remains closely connected to one’s identity and sense of purpose and inevitably belonging remains an instinctive human need in all of us.
Sense of belonging can be defined as the experience of both personal involvement and integration within an environment. In the chronologically constructed memoir Romulus, MyFather, the characters individual pursuit to find their home is explored by Gaita. Throughout the novel, Gaita is constantly referring to his home at Frogmore, where he spent most of his childhood. However, for his father, Romulus, the tough Australian environment and way of life was a place where he could not comfortably adapt, “He longed for the generous and soft European foliage … seemed symbols of deprivation and barrenness.” For Romulus, the only place he believed...

...Raimond Gaita’s 1998 memoir ‘RomulusmyFather’ and William Wordsworth’s 1978 poem ‘Tintern Abbey’ as they search through their past and discover their own individual sense of acceptance to their story and their world.
The 1998 reflective memoir ‘RomulusmyFather’ is a written testimony to Raimond Gaita’s father after his death, and a journey of self-discovery as he recollects the many memories he shared with his father upon migration to Australia. It offers the contrasting perspectives; those of his parents which identified feelings of anxiety and isolation upon having to adjust to the harsh barren landscape of Australia during the 1950’s, and that of young Gaita’s affiliation to the natural scenery. Similarly, William Wordsworth in his 1798 blank verse poem ‘Tintern Abbey’ travels through the passage of time in the recollection of an old Abbey five years later to revive his spirits, emphasising the Romantic’s values of love, nature and the imagination. As he reflects on the landscape of the Abbey and its surroundings his feelings of comfort and peacefulness resurface, yet so do new feelings of sorrow at the fragmented recollection of his past. Both texts illustrate the inextricable link between nature and man - through the passage of time our link with the natural world is strengthened and in conjunction so is our sense of belonging, the rejection or...

...EVALUATE HOW BELONGING IS EXPLORED THROUGH ‘ROMULUSMYFATHER’ & ONE RELATED TEXT
An individual’s ability to belong is based on their capacity to reconcile their values to a larger group identity; whereas a failure to connect, due to a disparity in values, results in isolation. Raimond Gaita’s memoir Romulus, MyFather, highlights the centrality of values in connecting through the contrasting experiences of Raimond and Romulus where Romulus’ failure to belong is based on his refusal to acculturate. In contrast, Andrew Niccol’s dystopian film, Gattaca, shows that an individual’s refusal to accept that his values are irreconcilable to society ultimately results in the expansion of both the definitions of belonging and connections being forged. Both texts, despite differing contexts, are united in their depiction of connections being based on desire.
In establishing a sense of belonging, connection is based upon an individual’s ability to synchronise their values with the values of a larger entity. Gaita’s titular character, Romulus, subscribes to an outdated European ethic, requiring “karacter”, resulting in his refusal to conform to a foreign Australian society. Like the “Red gum that stood only a hundred meters from the house becoming a symbol of desolation”, Romulus gains no sense of connection to the Australian environment....